Police pressure mounts against Germany’s far-right AfD

An entire regional chapter of Germany's far-right AfD party has been placed under police surveillance because of its extremist tendencies, local authorities said yesterday, as pressure against the anti-migrant group mounted.

The Brandenburg chapter of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is now "a suspicious case and an object of surveillance", said a spokesman for the region's interior ministry.

The decision will give officials in Brandenburg far-reaching powers to monitor the AfD's institutions and officials in the state, where the party came second in 2019 elections with 23.5 percent of the vote.

Such surveillance is reserved for groups or organisations that are deemed to pose a threat to democracy and the rule of law.

The latest official move to keep tabs on the group came three months after the party's most radical fringe known as the "Wing" was also placed under police surveillance due to its association with known neo-Nazis.